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LMS Market Outlook: Important if not exciting
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This conversation delves into the current state of the LMS market, exploring perceptions of stagnation versus excitement, the impact of AI, and the dynamics between major vendors like Anthology, D2L, Instructure, and Moodle. The discussion highlights the challenges and opportunities within the market, including pricing strategies, the role of non-credit education, and the evolving landscape of education technology.
00:00Introduction to the LMS Market Landscape
03:02Market Dynamics: Boring or Exciting?
05:59The LMS Market's Stability and SIS Comparisons
08:53AI's Impact on Education Technology
11:25Vendor-Specific Insights: Anthology and Blackboard
14:11D2L Fusion: Content Development and Pricing Strategies
36:50Engaging with the Community: Hockey and Accents
37:52Adoption of Add-Ons and Impact on Strategy
38:58AI Integration in D2L Brightspace
39:43Management Changes and Their Implications
41:01Pricing Strategies and Market Dynamics
43:03InstructureCon: Expectations and Product Strategy
48:01Moodle's Leadership Transition and Future Direction
54:57Open edX and the Evolving LMS Landscape
01:00:33Sakai and the Relevance of Specialized LMS
01:06:39Governance and Choices in EdTech Management
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Transcript
Introduction and Upcoming Conferences
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to Online Education Across the Atlantic. It's going to be a busy July for us with um several conferences, and several of them are going to be the LMS or VLE users conferences that we go to, or we get a lot of news about them for those who are not attending the conferences. i don't want to name names.
00:00:31
Speaker
um And so this is, we wanted to share with our listeners and viewers what we're thinking about heading into these conferences.
Overview of Major LMS and VLEs
00:00:41
Speaker
What's the status of the big vendors and what are we looking at?
00:00:46
Speaker
And ah to get started, I will point out that, um you know, the big four, the most commonly used LMS or VLEs are Moodle Worldwide and Structure Canvas, D2L Brightspace and Anthology Blackboard. And we're certainly going to talk about all four of those.
00:01:04
Speaker
But also point out that there's, ah you know, I'm going to a conference with Open edX that's in Paris. And I'll let you guys choose that my primary motivation for going to that.
00:01:16
Speaker
um Moodle has their conference in September.
Is the LMS Market Boring or Unstable?
00:01:20
Speaker
um so there's just a lot going on and we'll cover some of these additional vendors as well. But before we get started, I guess it's probably good sort of talking about the market. like And i with you two, is this a really boring market and nothing's going on? Or is this an unstable market and there's a lot of change in the air? Or just what's your impression of the market at large? And start with you, Morgan. Morgan.
00:01:51
Speaker
and I think it's a fairly boring market. One, they there there are a fairly small number of vendors that are in play um for the most part. I mean, as our report shows, there that there's a bunch of different vendors who deal with particular kinds of things. That being said, there are some sort of big questions in terms of strategy and the way that they're dealing with things like AI and so on. So there are differences. It's not like it's just flat, but um It's been a slow market in terms of changes from institutions and also
Stability and Timing in LMS Market
00:02:22
Speaker
just the size. So it's a fairly boring market, I would say. Like, what do you think, since there are not many schools changing from one vendor to another, why is that?
00:02:34
Speaker
I think partly it's a timing issue, which I think is underrated as an excuse. So, you know, there was a lot of change in that 2014, 15, 16 year
00:02:43
Speaker
kind of timeframe and schools tend to stay with a vendor for a while unless something dramatic happens. So, you know, I think in the next couple of years, we may be looking at some shifts, especially if, um you know, some of the current dynamics continue, but partly places, a lot of shifts happen. So just back in the day, i forget which year, but it was close to 2019, when I was still at Gartner, an investor sent me a list of the hundred biggest institutions in terms of enrollment in the United States and said, off the top of your head, tell me which of these have changed LMSs in the last couple of years. And I went through just with him on the call and ah vast majority the vast majority of them had changed. So, you know, one we're just not seeing that much change. And
00:03:35
Speaker
Even though it's not a commoditized market, I think there's a lot of um ah similarity and in terms of, you know, there's not a lot of breaking out saying, hey, we're going to do something completely e
Comparison to SIS Market
00:03:47
Speaker
different. So those are so so two of the things that are, you know, making it boring for me. But as I said, I like boring.
00:03:55
Speaker
Boring is good. All right, Neil, what's your exciting answer? How do you evaluate the market overall? Yeah, I mean, I agree with and certain points that Morgan's made. I mean, I think ultimately what makes a market exciting is that sense of kind of dynamism and change and innovation and the effects of things. And I think, you know, when you're thinking about in terms of a market um around, you know, what are the trends in terms of institutions moving, I think,
00:04:22
Speaker
There's also that kind of history aspect, isn't there, where, you know, if you've kind of been in this space for a while, you've seen the kind of early days of LMSs and VLEs and you've seen more dynamism because of that and people adopting stuff for the first time.
00:04:39
Speaker
And probably there's a period where institutions were changing a bit more. um But I think, you know, whether you whether we're talking about a kind of a ah general slowdown,
00:04:52
Speaker
In general, there's not a lot of, there's you know, year on year, there's not a lot to talk about. Certainly in my context, in terms of who's changed, who's switched, I'm seeing more kind of renewals, which isn't as that an exciting story, although it's a story, um as other things. And I think the other aspect of that, that relates to kind of the picture of the market is also the extent to which You could have, you know, great product updates and great enhancements and changes.
00:05:23
Speaker
um But those things don't always change the dial in terms of the market because I think some of the reasons why
What Makes EdTech Markets Exciting?
00:05:30
Speaker
institutions aren't changing at the moment is not because they don't necessarily see a product that might be better on the market. It's just that they've...
00:05:37
Speaker
they're in tough times at the moment and therefore just actually I've seen a lot of you know tenders or and similar type documents that have basically been we just want to renew because we've got loads of other stuff to deal with not so much in those words and so that's another challenging element where you know if you think of like a consumer product where suddenly you know I think about like my my online bank or something like that or my finance app or something. You get a whole bunch of new features and think, I'm going to go to them actually because that's a really cool thing and people are talking to talking about that bank and that product.
00:06:12
Speaker
So i think I think it's a slow moving moving market that's not super dynamic, which makes it challenging. And I think even the kind of product innovations don't always turn the dial in the way that they might do.
AI's Impact on EdTech
00:06:23
Speaker
for an app say. um So I think those that those are aspects of it. But I think when you get into when you sort of follow the space and you get into weeds of the space and you kind of know the companies and the differences, then you know all of the different things that come out um you know equate to areas of interest, even though in general, for those reasons, it's not um the sexiest of markets.
00:06:49
Speaker
I'm trying to picture you running a tender for your personal online bank. Yeah. That must be an exciting process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tracing requirements, matrices, and oh this is good stuff.
00:07:03
Speaker
Well, sir I mean, there's no doubt that the market's not changing much, and it hasn't changed. I'm more and more viewing this as not a matter of When will it get back to the middle 2010s and have a lot of changes back and forth?
00:07:20
Speaker
There's some element of it, but I think there's another element of Is the LMS market becoming the SIS market, the student information system market? I mean, you can't run a university without a student information system. It's critical. It controls your registrar, your course scheduling. your So much of the university is there.
00:07:41
Speaker
But it's ah very seldom do you change these days. I mean, there, it's more than 10 years. um But, and it certainly, i wouldn't think that it's a commodity either, because there's so many differences of the vendors.
00:07:57
Speaker
And as I, if you describe it that, and it's too expensive lately for institutions to change SISs very often. And as you describe the SIS market, there's an, you know, you can, there's an argument to say, well, that's what the LMS market
AI Tools and LMS Vendor Strategies
00:08:13
Speaker
is becoming.
00:08:15
Speaker
And if that's true, so you have a market that's not changing much, yet it's even more mission critical than before. And it's not a commodity. And i what we mean, or certainly what I mean by it's not a commodity, it's not fungible.
00:08:30
Speaker
If you change vendors, you will have different performance, different outcomes of use. It's not just saving money going from one system to another. So if you look at those together, to me, it's sounding more and more like the SIS market, but without the money that goes into the SIS market.
00:08:50
Speaker
um So I would add that as well, which sounds, ah yeah, I don't know how that sounds to the vendors, but ah I think the holistic picture is is pointing that direction. What does an exciting like market look like in EdTech? What would be an example? I was sort of trying to ah run through my head if I could come up with an example of what an exciting market would look like. And I'm i'm coming up a little bit blank.
00:09:16
Speaker
Well, I would argue that ah the LMS market in the 2010s was exciting because that's when it was ah lots of market changes, but also disruption of old ideas. So going from on-premises to cloud, you get vendors, ah Blackboard and D2L in particular, taking way too long to acknowledge that intuitive user interface in cloud is a key camp.
00:09:43
Speaker
So that market was exciting. Yeah. You could argue that right now the ah it's not a market that people are purchasing per se, but certainly the ChatGPT and Google Gemini and the usage of that in the classroom, mostly by even more by students than by faculty, but that one's exciting. Yeah.
00:10:06
Speaker
think What other examples? Well, I think as well, just grounding it back in the LMS VLE side of things, I think there's definitely been
Student Agency and AI in Education
00:10:16
Speaker
areas of much greater interest because of AI, essentially, I think. I mean, I think if you were to kind of um if you were tonet think, what would we have talked about in the last two years about LMS and VLE product-wise if it wasn't for AI? Like, that's that's kind of an interesting way of thinking about it. so i think you know Although the general market you know said is is slow moving, I think the AI thing as as generally you know has generally kind of added a bit more dynamism. and it's is
00:10:48
Speaker
you know I think we talked in the past about how that's... differentiated products a little bit more or strategies a little bit more than than in the past. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think just going back to the original question in terms of what makes something exciting, I mean, I think it can be some it can be superficial.
00:11:05
Speaker
It can just be the emergence of a product and lots of changes and, know, you know it doesn't have to be um in relation to kind of positive changes or positive effects or real innovation or real solving of problems. So the OPM the opm market has been exciting the last few years.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, because you've had lots of you know turmoil. how I mean, like i get I guess it kind of depends through which lens you look at what constitutes like exciting, um I suppose. But um yeah, yeah.
00:11:41
Speaker
One thing I do want to add, then then I'd like to sort of talk about specific vendors. I attended ah a Gemini in education, Google Gemini in education event recently.
00:11:52
Speaker
And it was also K-12 focused. They were leading into the ISTE conference and they were pre-announcing things to certain people. But I'm telling you, you sit there and take in all of the stuff that's happening there. It is, I think we in higher education get too tied to this cynical storyline. Oh, it's just hallucinations. Oh, it's overhyped. It's It's gonna change everything or it's nothing.
00:12:20
Speaker
You watch this and the technology that they have within Gemini, particularly
Challenges for LMS Vendors with AI
00:12:26
Speaker
within Notebook LM, is stunning. I just cannot describe how it is really impressive and changing rapidly. So Notebook LM, its ability to take a lot of material and summarize it into study notes, into an audio podcast,
00:12:46
Speaker
They're rolling out soon the video summary, so it'll be they'll be doing this podcast video podcast for us. um But I think they're even doing explainer videos that can be created from course materials, and students are using this.
00:13:03
Speaker
And it really changes how you can study, and it changes a lot of assumptions. behind how we do quizzing, etc. And one of the things that really hit me is how do edtech vendors, particularly LMS VLE vendors in this case, how do you keep up with that?
00:13:22
Speaker
you just there're It's not that we're creating our own LLMs. So the underlying technology, we already assume we're using big tech. large language models and Gen.AI.
00:13:35
Speaker
But watching this, it raises the question about products, things like Notebook LM, that are directly usable to end users. And how do LMS vendors, or should they or can they, compete with that type of big big tech investment? And that is a major question for me.
00:13:55
Speaker
um And it gets back to the differing AI strategies. But I'm just saying, I think there's going to be a lot of changes of ed tech in terms of technology in the classroom.
00:14:06
Speaker
And there's an element of the LMS vendors need to ah scramble ah to maintain their relevance longer term ah based on what i I guess that's I think that's what I'm
Adapting to Student-Centered AI Tools
00:14:20
Speaker
saying right now. have to take this through a little bit more.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's interesting in terms of the level of agency that some of the AI tools give to students and learners in a way that you know maybe wasn't present in the past. I mean, I guess there was always things that they could use in terms of ed tech alongside their studies, but I think the ah the developments that we're seeing and with AI really blow it open. And I think not only that,
00:14:44
Speaker
you kind of almost have that paradigm in work. I saw something recently around how many people are paying for their own individual AI, you know whether ChatGPT or whatever, and just using it within their work and circumventing anything that their company might have. There's that kind of real personal individual agency element of it, which I think plays into the kind of study side of things. Obviously, then there's questions of you know, are students set up to use that effectively? and And, you know, do they need guidance around that kind of thing? What does that mean for the institutional tools and the ways in which we might have been a bit more directive around what they should do, like do a quiz and read ah
00:15:24
Speaker
you know, around their study. So I think that's super interesting. Does that um mean that the LMS goes away? I don't think so. But I think it's a sort of a step on from, you know i don't know, I don't know when personal learning environments were but talked about, but it feels like a long time ago. But it's it's kind of a step on from there in terms of the agency and the power that people have to use this technology for their own learning environment.
00:15:53
Speaker
I think that, i just jump in there, I think you mentioned the key word and helps me think through this, it's the directive. Institutions want to be directive. And I think that there's going to be a desire to, hey, we will set up AI access for you and here's how you can use it and here's what's approved. And there's always a desire to be directive.
00:16:15
Speaker
The more I'm seeing recently, that's not going to work. They need to rethink the paradigm of the institution directing how students and faculty and even staff are going to use these tools and get a lot more into figuring it out and seeing what's happening.
Anthology Together Conference Preview
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, the nature of knowledge, yeah creation and manipulation and acquisition has changed. Yeah. All right. So let's jump into individual vendors, um because that is where there is some some interesting news. The first, ah I'll get back to Open edX later in this episode, but let's start. The first ah conference is going to be Anthology Together, which we've already mentioned is a very unfortunate name for this timeframe, because Anthology is going through debt restructuring.
00:17:06
Speaker
Blackboard is actively being, um shopped for sale. ah So they're looking at one of the ways to deal with the debt is to break up the company, which um could include Blackboard being its own company again or Blackboard being part of some other strategic company's portfolio. We don't know the answer.
00:17:28
Speaker
But given the fact that Anthology's position is together, we have a suite of tools and they all fit together, That messaging is going to be pretty tough. so I guess I'm already ah answering my question of what I'm looking for then is it is unknown what the status of Blackboard is as a product line, as a company. It is quite clear that in the ratings agent, debt ratings agencies are very clear.
00:17:57
Speaker
Something has to happen. They cannot manage their debt and their debt holders are forcing the a change.
Blackboard's Future and Market Uncertainties
00:18:08
Speaker
And I was hoping for their own sake that there would be an answer. So you go into Anthology together and they say, here's the answer. Here's what's going to happen to it.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's getting pretty close where it's not that ah we're not going to have an answer as we head in there. At the same time, they've been the most aggressive in investing in their own AI tools within the product line, typically without monetizing or charging extra.
00:18:35
Speaker
which is an expensive proposition. so I have to admit, i think that conference is going to have the biggest immediate questions to answer. um What are you guys looking for, particularly for Blackboard and what they might announce or what I should be? so i think I'm the only one of the three of us who's going to that conference.
00:18:57
Speaker
What should I be looking for?
00:19:02
Speaker
think i ah yeah i mean i I think it's hard to get beyond that big cloud that's hanging over for them. Sorry, I was just trying to think of a witty way of thinking about a change from an anthology together to something that's more descriptive ah together for now, maybe. um that ah It's hard to get past that cloud that's looming over them really. And I think um that's the main thing that, you know, I guess is on my radar for kind of understanding what's happening around that and what that Are you hearing UK universities talk about that right now? Like, is it a topic of talk or is it something that the analysts such as ourselves are talking about?
Anthology's AI Investments
00:19:44
Speaker
I think often those things rarely cut through to the universities themselves. And so I don't often hear that. And I would say that even in relation to some of the travails of OPMs as well, actually, there's ah sometimes I've had conversations assuming that people would be aware of certain things and they're not. So I don't think that's been...
00:20:05
Speaker
a big thing in the UK. And if anything, you know, but the thing that I've seen the most of in terms of and institution activity has really been kind of renewals with with blackburn Blackboard recently. So think so i think I think that's the big thing because I think in the past, maybe 12 months ago, we would have been talking a bit more about kind of AI features.
00:20:29
Speaker
and Maybe we'll get on this on this in terms of a more general point, but I feel like there's a bit more of kind of AI concern ai feature consolidation going on at the moment.
00:20:40
Speaker
um And so Consolidation between vendors? Sorry, consolidation is not the right... and Consolidation in terms of... ah and Consolidation of AI features. So rather than going further and progressing and developing more and more features, I think there's been a there's been a ah there was a flurry of activity across the different vendors in different ways.
00:21:02
Speaker
And actually just seeing things like, um you know, Blackboard talking a bit more deeply about their AI conversation tool rather than the next new thing.
00:21:13
Speaker
That's what I mean, essentially. um So, yeah, that's that's kind of where I'm at in terms of, I just think that's such a big potential story that it's hard to get beyond that. And I've not seen...
00:21:28
Speaker
lots of stuff product-wise across the piece that makes me think oh well I'm looking for this or looking for that I mean you're always looking for impact um I suppose around some of the things that they've done in the past and the way that they've kind of evolved the product in the past you're kind of looking for impact um but yeah for me it's it's the kind of question mark over blackboard that's the big big thing Although I would say before we go to Morgan, what you're describing and beyond the cloud of what's happening with their debt, their adoption is, I think, what you're implying is if they're consolidating on existing features, then one of the biggest questions is more and more, they they're going to need to show usage that colleges and universities are using these tools in a meaningful
Blackboard's AI Strategy and Non-Credit Market
00:22:13
Speaker
manner.
00:22:13
Speaker
So that's something to watch for. Morgan, what are your thoughts on that? So one, i hope this is the last conference in a long time that we get to go, you get to go to Las Vegas. I think Las Vegas is needs to be done as a conference venue, just to just to answer a trivial question first, but an important one for me. um but But secondly, i want I want to see where they're going next with the AI. I mean, they were first out the gate, they approached it in a much more comprehensive sort of way than the other places, but like, are they going to kick on?
00:22:46
Speaker
and and go to a next thing. Because especially ah last ah last week or the the week before when you were um telling me about the the Google meeting that you were at for the first time, I had also been at Instride Impact Conference and Lev Gonick was one of the the keynotes there. But just talking about the vision for ASU in terms of the LMS,
00:23:10
Speaker
ah and AI there was very different from what I've heard from vendors. So I want to see if they've evolved into what we're starting to see from Google and from the ASUs of the world, or is it going to be stuck sort of tweaking some of those sort of fairly nice, but fairly humdrum kinds of things that that they're doing. So that would be sort of one thing.
00:23:33
Speaker
The other one is is, and this is a particular interest of mine and and maybe not broadly shared, but about the continuing education and non-credit market. You know, that's one thing I'm going to be looking at extensively with Instructure and D2L, but Blackboard or in Anthology actually has all the bits in place, but they just don't talk about it.
00:23:52
Speaker
And it's it's an opportunity that I think is lost, as it is yeah almost as much as it is for for Moodle, which also doesn't talk about it. So, you know, those are sort of some of the things off the top of my top of my mind.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, if I can jump in there, I think that that that's, there's some really interesting points there. I think there's some general themes there. mean, the continuing education um short course thing is really front of mind for
AI Innovations vs. Non-Credit Focus
00:24:20
Speaker
me at the moment. And I think um i think that's sort of what I think about in terms of new new business, I suppose, in a way we're kind of talking about the kind of core university side of things, but i kind of think about ah sort of themes and it is, you know, that is one theme in terms of kind of generating kind of new business or new activity. And I think the other element of that, which we might get into later, is, you know, how much the UK, the US are as big a deal as emerging and fast growing international markets too. But yeah, that's that's a slightly different point.
00:24:54
Speaker
So here's one idea, armchair product management that we're doing. So we can say whatever we want. We don't have to develop. But i've from day one, when Anthology bought Blackboard you know campus management, was the core SIS. And I said, this just doesn't make sense. it's ah If you make the assumption that because a school purchases their SIS from one vendor, they'll also wanna buy their LMS or vice versa. I just, strategy that didn't work.
00:25:25
Speaker
However, in the non-credit market, There's this opportunity, and I think we're all talking about it. They have course registration for technology. They have CRM technology to communicate with all kinds of vendors, not just matriculated student vendors, with students.
00:25:45
Speaker
You have the LMS. Why have they never just had a standalone non-credit package that just... You don't have to use the campus, well, what used to be called, you don't have to use Anthology Student, but this standalone mini package will get you going in non-credit in a coordinated fashion.
00:26:06
Speaker
They've never, maybe they thought about it and they haven't done it. Well, two years ago in an analyst meeting, I did ask about it and they seemed surprised. Like, oh, yeah, no, we we could do that. Yeah.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah. think I think that's so interesting talking about this because, you know, in the UK, I see a lot of, a lot maybe a lot is to overstate it, but I see a decent amount of activity around that those types of products now.
00:26:34
Speaker
And having just done a massive piece of work looking at that across UK higher education, the infrastructure behind existing offers is you know, how can I be polite, is is pretty desperate.
00:26:47
Speaker
It's... it' it's It's an area where there's a massive amount of pain on the part of customers. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's interesting to juxtapose with what we've been talking about AI features, because there's part of me that thinks, um yeah, I'm really interested in a new innovative approach and to take things forward and to really develop the product. But also part of me thinks, well, to an extent, what's the incentive for the company? Because I think on... on um On another side of the kind of coin, um i if I ask myself, am i really seeing um lots of innovative AI usage in higher education pedagogy?
00:27:28
Speaker
I may be missing something, but the answer to that in general is is no. And therefore, if AI product features cost, what is the incentive for me as a business to go in that direction when on the flip side, I'm seeing enough signals of institutions and problems on the the non-credit side of things where there may be an opportunity. think that's an interesting interesting tension um that that that's in the market as well. I think you're arguing that we should be making this market even more boring.
00:28:01
Speaker
Take away the one sexy aspect of AI. I know, but i think that's an interesting i mean I think that's an interesting strategic conundrum because we talked about the fact that you know Actually, what AI does is it gives a lot more power and agency into hands of students who are not necessarily looking for institutions to supply tools that they can use. they might be The need might be, and I'm speculating a little bit more,
00:28:27
Speaker
the the the capability to kind of think about how they use those tools in in study in a way that's productive. So actually, if I'm running an LMS company, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think about a strategy that is, um you know, maybe maybe be more conservative around that front. I'm not saying that that's what they should do or that's what I would do, but I think that's a reasonable discussion to have given where we're at.
00:28:56
Speaker
LMS companies need need to repress their inner squirrel because theyre the squirrel in them comes out too awful. You know, the dog chasing the squirrels like, um You know, else. But aren't they partially doing that because their customers are talking about squirrels, even if they're not, or they're talking about acorns, even if they're not using acorns?
00:29:17
Speaker
Isn't that part of the issue as well? I think it is, but they need to really work with their customers to explain that, hey, we've got to solve these these other problems, you know, um and and and really work with them around that rather than pandering to it. And in the early days of Instructure, we used to see them doing that. It's like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to solve this problem.
00:29:38
Speaker
And so it it can work, I think. I think it also is interesting around perception because i think we talked about this when we spoke about AI in the past. But for me, innovation isn't creating a new AI feature that no one uses and has no impact.
00:29:55
Speaker
ah Innovation for me is a lot more using AI to solve a reoccurring or common problem in a way that just reduces loads of friction and actually makes people think, oh, great, this is really actually you
D2L Fusion Conference Preview
00:30:09
Speaker
actually useful. And I think just going back to what we were talking about earlier, the ways in which the new banking apps have done that,
00:30:16
Speaker
I think has been an example of a product in in like another realm that actually i i can think of few products that make me think, oh this is actually really good. This is actually really solved the problem or I can just, can it it makes my life a bit easier.
00:30:32
Speaker
And so I think it also depends how you, how you gauge and think about innovation. um yeah So this gets back to the sexy spreadsheet usage that I mentioned, Morgan.
00:30:44
Speaker
That saved me so many hours with a one-sentence prompt, and it still is stunning to me how useful that was. Can I just say that's probably the first usage of those two words together? Sexy spreadsheet. Oh, i did I did actually manage to find a product ah where you can buy...
00:31:06
Speaker
spreadsheets, so spreadsheets that look like spreadsheets. And I threatened to buy Phil that for his birthday. But then he pointed out that those were Google spreadsheets and he prefers Excel. All right. So let's talk about other vendors. ah Then the following week um is both D2L Fusion, and ah which is in Savannah, Georgia. Morgan's going. And then InstructureCon, which is in Spokane, Washington, that I'm going to.
00:31:34
Speaker
So let's start with a D2L fusion. and I will point out, so I went to that last year. This year, Morgan's going to it. Last year, it was dominated by... D2L saying, we're differentiating based on interactive content development.
00:31:52
Speaker
Increase it with the H5P acquisition and their own Creator Plus. How do we um offer more for people to not just create content, but interactive content within LMS? That was what dominated last year.
00:32:08
Speaker
And AI was within that context. How does it help get that done and a few other things? So it's quite different than anthology. This year, I'm not quite sure if you have a good preview of what it's going to be like. But um so, Morgan, what are you going to be looking for at the conference beyond some excellent um haunted seafood joints while you're in Savannah?
00:32:32
Speaker
i'm I'm going to be staying inside. That's what I'm going to be doing, having had a taste of of Southern summer. recently in Atlanta. So I'm going to be staying inside in the probably pretty good air conditioning.
00:32:43
Speaker
ah So that's what I'm going to be doing. ah But I think following on of their non-credit move, because because they have yeah ah purchased a company that they're that they're doing there, but I want to see what the progress is.
00:32:56
Speaker
I think also, you know it relates to that to that approach about content and things like that, but gets to some larger things that I'm looking at is is pricing strategy and and the way that they're sort of thinking about that and how that's going to work.
00:33:10
Speaker
um you know Because I think LMSs are traditionally underpriced. So places are looking at the ah the add-ons and things like that, which traditionally doesn't go down well with clients. So what is that sort of tension there?
00:33:24
Speaker
ah So that's another thing that I'm going to be looking at. ah I'm also, this is this is just a small thing, but I'm going to be looking for clients from Canada who aren't yet clients of D2L to see what's going on, because there's some pressure in in Canada, particularly Ontario, too ah to move to D2L in terms of the the trade troubles. So those are some of the things I'm going to be looking at.
LMS Market Pricing and Trade Concerns
00:33:49
Speaker
But again, to see how far that... ah content strategy has evolved because it's all very well to announce it, but it's really the evolution that's really important to me.
00:33:59
Speaker
um Can you move on from that initial announcement? So this is risky, but you're breezing past ah two two points that I think we've written about, but I think we need to highlight because there's significant one. As you talked about, LMS is underpriced.
00:34:14
Speaker
So Morgan, once again, saying colleges and universities, you are not paying enough for your LMS or VLE. The second thing you mentioned was ah the very pithy phrase, the trade troubles. So describe both of those a little bit more. And and and you mentioned risky. and and um a few years back, i I said this exact thing to the CEO of one of the LMS companies and actually a very calm man normally, but I thought he was going to punch me. He almost climbed over the table.
00:34:46
Speaker
He didn't like that. um But, you know, if you look at the ah pricing for LMSs, it's remained flat for a very long time, even if they even if they as they have added extra features and and put a lot of investment into things like AI and and making the user interface things. So I think it's it's underpriced relative to the importance on the campus and to what it's doing as well.
00:35:11
Speaker
um ah the the The trade troubles, I'm borrowing a page from Neil's Countryman who talked about the troubles, you know,
00:35:24
Speaker
So it's not quite as as bad as that. But the the the the tariff wars between the United States and and everybody, including Islands of Penguins, um ah who fortunately don't have LMS companies. But I'm hearing from some Canadian clients that there is some pressure to start to think about moving away from an instructor or a ah a blackboard in part to limit their vulnerability to some of this ah tariff
D2L's International Focus
00:35:57
Speaker
concern, even though in the past these kinds of services have not been subject to tariffs. Am I right in that, Phil?
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's right. I would liken it to in the mid to late 2010s, I got the same feeling in Europe, although it would started out as sort of the dominant feeling of because of the and NSA and the data privacy issues. And there was a heavy bias against U.S. companies because of, well, how do we know that your data isn't going to be going to the U.S. and then you have no idea where it's going?
00:36:31
Speaker
And I think the AWS ah center in Frankfurt really helped solve that bias. But I liken that, that there, what you're saying is there's an emerging bias from Canadian institutions to not go American.
00:36:47
Speaker
that ah That's what I'm hearing from you. So I'll be walking around saying, hey, anybody want to watch some hockey? you know Oh, my gosh. I'm not sure you should do that.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, to see if anybody comes and chats with me. but i think I can't tell if that's a South African or Canadian accent. but I'm not good at accents. It's bad enough having my own one, although I sometimes joke that if I'd known that having an accent was going to be such a big hit, I would have gotten one earlier. Yeah.
00:37:16
Speaker
um So, Neil, tell us about D2L in your mind and what questions you have. I'm fascinated because i I'd never expected the LMS to be part of a kind of a bi-local, bi-regional kind of movement. But maybe that's going to be the the Canadian campaign for D2L. I should watch that with with interest.
00:37:38
Speaker
LMS to table movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
I think um the strategic point that Morgan meant made around the kind of add-on strategy, I think is front of mind for me, just because I remember um when I was in Amsterdam for the D2L conference, the European conference, I think one of the things that struck me in one of the sessions, and I forget which add-on it was now, so forgive me,
00:38:07
Speaker
But the show of hands for people who'd actually adopted it was not what you would have hoped it to be in a session like that. And so, you know, when you're um sort of executing on that strategy and you're developing those kind of add-ons, I mean...
00:38:23
Speaker
you want to see you want to see impact, but ultimately you also want to see um and and prove that kind of kind of strategy really. So and I'm not sure that this would necessarily come to light at a conference, but it's certainly not through the main sessions, but it's kind of gauging the extent to which actually people are adopting these things that are kind of new and developing um such that you could get a sense of actually you know how that strategy is
D2L's Management Changes
00:38:49
Speaker
performing. Because we kind of questioned it in the past around you know institutional finances and and whether they even these things would come under review when institutions are thinking about VLE change.
00:39:00
Speaker
severely changed So that's a big one for me. i'm kind of I've seen bits and bobs around Lumi, so I'm kind of interested in seeing how that's progressing and how... And just for people, Lumi is their branding of the AI tools within D2L Brightspace.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. So i'm I'm interested in how big that becomes. I'm interested in whether that continues to be this they this thing or whether it just gets kind of, um I guess, sort of, it just blends into the product, if can put it like that. Because I think that's another element of like how how you think about AI in relation to a to a product too. So those are the big things for me for for D2L. Or maybe one other thing, if I can just add it, I'm just interested also in terms of focus, because I think, you know to my earlier point, when I sort of survey the scene in maybe the last six months for some of these companies in the UK, I see a lot of stuff around kind of international movements and adoptions and things like, in detail, I've been really pushing around kind of that presence in Ireland.
00:40:06
Speaker
um And so, yeah, that it's sort of what's coming out in terms of market focus and whether that whether that tells you anything.
00:40:17
Speaker
So one thing about D2L, I mean, they have, you know, clearly they, along with Instructure Canvas, have been the winners in terms of new implementations.
InstructureCon Preview
00:40:29
Speaker
But we've already described there aren't that many opportunities anymore. um and we're not sure when that's going to increase. But they've also, going to your point, they've invested in a lot of features. They've always had a lot of features, particularly compared to Canvas, but with the Lumi, the um Creator Plus, the H5P acquisition, they have even more.
00:40:54
Speaker
So part of it is how much do they, or how well is that leveraging of depth of features impacting what people are talking about.
00:41:05
Speaker
So I'd love to hear from you, Morgan, about what people are people talking about. Oh, this feature in Creator Plus, this feature over here, or as Neil's, you know, talking about even the, if you can get the whole raise of hands, who's using Creator Plus and paying for it um to make yourself popular.
00:41:22
Speaker
I would add one other thing, ah Stephen Laster leaving and going to Panopto. um You know, he was president COO. John Baker, founder, CEO, is jumping back into that more of that operational role.
00:41:39
Speaker
But that raises a question, are we sort of pulling the company back backwards in time, not necessarily backwards in functionality, but what is the management change, particularly with Stephen leaving?
00:41:51
Speaker
What does that mean? And does that change the direction of where they're going? um John's the, John's the, is by far the remaining founder CEO who's there, right?
00:42:05
Speaker
yeah um and So how much does that longevity and, you know, it's not all private equity and stuff like that. How does that play from a management perspective is another big question, even more than last year um from what I saw.
00:42:21
Speaker
so So going back to that pricing, I think that it's, we talked about the stability of pricing, which is not necessarily good, but because the LMS market is underpriced, that's so what so often forces companies to go into corporate markets or do other things just to justify themselves to investors, which isn't necessarily good with colleges and their core audience. so Part of the reason I think it's underpriced is because if it was, if these systems were priced higher, i think we'd get more focus from the companies of truly supporting what colleges and universities need.
Instructure's Product Strategy and Risks
00:43:03
Speaker
But um direct your ire at Morgan for that point. And you know just in in you're from 2014 to 2024, I mean, 2022, I just looked did a lot of contract reviews with institutions.
00:43:18
Speaker
And especially in the earlier part of that period, you know the mid-teens, there was a lot of, particularly of Blackboard, of just add-ons and things like that. And I think places you really underestimate how much that annoys higher ed. It just drives them crazy so that when Instructure came with very simple contracts, just one price pretty much that included everything that they needed.
00:43:42
Speaker
They jumped to that just because they liked that simplicity in a way. You know, sure, there were other things going on, but that was a big part of it. Yeah, true. All right, so let's move on to InstructureCon. So I'll be going to Spokane, Washington. Yeah, Spokane and Savannah, not easy places to get to. I know you criticize Las Vegas, but at least Vegas is easy to travel to.
00:44:04
Speaker
um And I listened to you. You said there's an excellent restaurant at the Fontainebleau. So Emily is coming out with me, I think, just for the spa and just so we can find the restaurant that you were telling me I have to go to.
00:44:18
Speaker
So there are important things to solve. um InstructureCon. So this is going to be a very interesting time for them, partially to see how they're taking advantage of other opportunities, particularly the Anthology.
00:44:33
Speaker
And let's build on the pricing. For the first time, Anthology um and Structure's always been very solid and disciplined with their pricing, I think they're trying to be very aggressive in taking advantage of the cloud over Blackboard because of the debt structure.
00:44:53
Speaker
Excuse me. So that's one of the things I'll be looking for. The other one, and I'll go back to this Gemini for Education. I've been critical of Instructure that their product group is just not putting out very much.
Instructure's Financial and Executive Influence
00:45:07
Speaker
they Like if they reintroduce Conmigo for a third time at this InstructureCon, I'm going to, yeah, that that will be a standalone post criticizing. You can't keep doing that. You need your own product strategy.
00:45:24
Speaker
And I just don't see much. Having said that and having, you know, the topic we had about AI, there is an argument saying there's, well, Neil, you even mentioned, like, what's the incentive for developing AI when it's not really being used for pedagogical advancements at universities?
00:45:44
Speaker
There can be an argument for the canvas strategy of saying, no, we're not putting much ah into new features because we just want to integrate. Maybe it's not Conmigo, but the Gemini for Education also announced that you can now access those tools directly within Canvas.
00:46:04
Speaker
So Notebook LM, they're going to make it easier to access Notebook LM. So there's a strong, and I think PowerSchool is the other ah version, obviously Google Classroom.
00:46:15
Speaker
But um So there's an argument to say, hey we shouldn't be doing too much product. We should just be getting these other tools in there. There's another piece, which is I can't talk too much detail, but I mean, you know, we are hearing whispers that there might be some meaningful product announcements, more so than the past two years of InstructureCon. So when I go there, I'm going to be seeing what is their product strategy? And is it a coherent story, particularly vis-a-vis um Gen AI and big tech?
00:46:50
Speaker
And are they going to be announcing product advancements specifically in Canvas that gets their customers to do what they used to do, where people in the audience, where they hear it, they're like, oh, thank you. We've been waiting for that so much.
00:47:06
Speaker
So I'm really looking for that and just sort of the general mood, because in Structure's executive team, Right now, you have about three people who are remaining, maybe four if you include, well, some of the back office people, who were remain from an education ed tech background or from a long-time instructor. They have a lot of new executives who come from completely outside of education.
00:47:37
Speaker
You're not seeing them talk. i don't So I have a question. How well do they know the market, the new chief revenue officer? How well does that person understand what the real pain points of um higher ed is and how colleges and universities think? are they So there's a risk they're becoming too corporate, too private equity-based.
00:48:01
Speaker
Or maybe they're just going to keep running, you know, operating extremely well. So I'll be looking at their management situation as well.
Instructure's Non-Credit Market Potential
00:48:10
Speaker
So having said all that, what are your big observations and questions on Instructure that I should be looking for, the questions that you have that you hope that come out in the July timeframe?
00:48:24
Speaker
i can I can jump in. I've got two sort of additional ones to all the ones that you're looking at. ah The one is, what is their strategy, RE, parchment in specific, and the whole workforce thing? I've heard rumors that headlamp didn't work, that it's not going on there. So I've never heard a coherent approach to what they're doing there, and I really want to figure out- Could you describe headlamp, what you mean by that?
00:48:50
Speaker
You know- I don't know a lot about it, I've just heard, but it was ah a way of helping to ah prepare students and connect them with employers as well. If you can know you've got a more pithy one, that would be great. but So I want a better approach to what they're doing there, what their long-term plan is. you know It seems there's a lot of spaghetti being thrown at the wall or like, you know,
00:49:12
Speaker
this is going to help us some way. And and I think there's there's a real risk of it running into some real problems or not sort of having um the features that can keep clients there. So that would be other thing. And then again, it's the non-credit stuff.
00:49:28
Speaker
Last year at InstructureCon, I made the point of going to a lot of the non-credit platforms ah presentations. And, you know, it it felt like but a bit like schools were saying, yeah, you know, catalog is working for us, but so long as I stand on one leg and, you know,
00:49:46
Speaker
and recite Wordsworth backwards seven times and and and twist the light bulb. That's when it works, you know, to do this particular very common task that I need to do. So i want to see if they're investing in that and what the product line looks like. Because again, it's it sort of seems like they have ideas.
00:50:05
Speaker
um A lot of LMS strategy feels a bit like my blogging pipeline You know, I've got a lot of great ideas, but then following it through with an actual post sometimes takes a lot more work, and they're not doing that work to get it to that thing.
Instructure's AI Features and Education Trends
00:50:20
Speaker
So those would be my two big ones. You have a new newsletter that you're committing to by Friday. am. In fact, I have posts. I have posts um and I needed to talk to you about, about helping me set up the thing.
00:50:31
Speaker
And I feel guilty because you just had a daughter get married and a kid and a new grandchild. And ah so, so um I actually am ready to do it, but I need your help.
00:50:42
Speaker
Oh, the day before I hop on a plane. Yes, that's why I said I'm feeling guilty. I don't want to do it. So maybe we need to wait. No. All right, Neil. I was just going to say, I feel seen in what you were saying around blog posts and ideas and notes coming to fruition.
00:50:58
Speaker
um Yeah, if anyone went through my notes, then they'd confirm that. they'd they'd confirm that Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I've liked some of the AI features that they've developed, things like the kind of intelligent insights and...
00:51:16
Speaker
translation and things like that. I suppose, um and this is probably my bad, but the extent to which some of those things are actually rolled out more widely would be interesting to understand. And maybe that's in the public domain and it's my my my bad.
00:51:34
Speaker
But I think it's just interesting. i was thinking about this as you guys were speaking, that is do we really get a sense that we could put a...
00:51:46
Speaker
you know, label on their AI product strategy in the way that we might do some of the other vendors. And maybe that's fine, but I think it's just the absence of understanding what the strategy is or to be able to glean the strategy if it is that kind of um we're not going to make this a big thing in of itself. We're going to make make adjustments to the product, and that's our strategy. And then we might kind of bring in you know other ed tech like Khan Migo. By the way, let me put a phrase on it. What we're looking for, because I think all three of us are describing in different ways, we're looking to see if there's any coherence in their product strategy, not just individual good ideas.
00:52:25
Speaker
Is there any coherence? That's what... the label, the non-sexy label, I would add. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a great that's a great way of putting it. i mean, I think the other thing for me is I i suppose I've kind of maybe said in the past, i feel like they they talk about, um I think more so than the other companies, they talk a bit more about higher education trends.
00:52:48
Speaker
some micro-credentials and things like that. And I i think I'm interested to to get a sense of how that translates into strategy and prioritisation around some of the things that Morgan talked around about but catalogue, because I know that they are...
00:53:03
Speaker
um they are sort of invested in those developments in the UK, like the lifelong learning in time and entitlement and that kind of shorter provision. I know that they're engaged in that side of things, but the extent to which I've seen that translated in terms of product and there may be being a bit more... um a bit and louder around things like catalog. I think that's what I'm interested to see. I mean, in the UK, I would say, you know, they've really built a very strong position, I think, around Canvas over here.
00:53:39
Speaker
um And so it's, you know, maybe there is a bit more rope to prioritise other products and align with other challenges that institutions have. But I guess I'm not seeing that directly.
Moodle's Leadership and Strategy
00:53:55
Speaker
And that'd be interesting to to to see and observe. I mean, I think I'm more concerned around parchment. ah Parchment feels like less aligned with the UK space, but catalogue is the one, I suppose, that um my eyes are kind of more fixed on.
00:54:09
Speaker
Yeah, I am too. um I realize that parchment's more important. Morgan knows that market better than I do. um But yeah, I'm looking for coherence, a story to make it understandable across all of those product lines.
00:54:23
Speaker
On the positive side, i was thinking another way to describe this. Of all of the vendors, Instructure has the best finances. They're the strongest in terms of money.
00:54:35
Speaker
not and they're you know They spent a lot of time offshoring development to Hungary, a lot of layoffs. They've been better in the management side. And now they have KKR behind them as private equity.
00:54:48
Speaker
They have the greatest financial resources. Are they, you know, does that come out in their strategy as far as what they can do? So that leads to another, the other big one, obviously, is Moodle. Moodle's the biggest worldwide.
00:55:04
Speaker
They've changed Martin Dugiamas' step down. He's still chairman of the board, but he's no longer CEO. Scott Annenberg is. Yeah. Actually, there are two conferences of interest.
00:55:15
Speaker
While the three of us are at Leeds, I'm moderating a panel where I have people from Blackboard, D2L, Instructure, and Canvas all on one panel.
00:55:26
Speaker
It's a panel, so I don't know how deep we can get in the conversation, but I'm looking to hear Scott talk. come out or say more of what his vision is or how things might change if they're going to change at all at Moodle.
00:55:41
Speaker
So I know when you went to that last fall, Morgan, you didn't see much change. You saw desire to not change is what I think you saw. Yeah, it seemed to be mostly about comforting people that things were going to stay the same. And, you know, there were some obviously some changes, real changes in product, particularly in the corporate product.
00:56:01
Speaker
Um, and you know, uh, uh, a new discipline in terms of, uh, new features and things like that from Maria Shor and things like that. So there was some really positive things there, but in terms of the overall strategy, it was all, it's all good.
00:56:15
Speaker
you know, if we, we love education. We love nonprofit. We love the the whole, uh, uh, feel good kind of open source story.
00:56:26
Speaker
and and about comforting people rather than, hey this is going to be different because it's a different world we're living
Moodle's Academic Market Potential
00:56:31
Speaker
in. We need to do it. So it'll be interesting to see year later. a year later Yeah, so there are two things. One is a desire to change, particularly in academic markets, or not to change, what you were seeing last year.
00:56:43
Speaker
um But the other one, as long as we're playing armchair product management here on this podcast, why can they not do a Moodle for workplace, but do that for academia? They've shown that they have the ability to develop some pretty cool packaging of the product based on the open source core,
00:57:04
Speaker
That's compelling. Yet they have so far refused to do that in academic markets when I think that's exactly what the academic markets want to see from them. Why can they not do that as a... That's my armchair product management still. Why won't they do it? There's a big opportunity for them to start gaining market share again and relevance.
00:57:27
Speaker
I want to have some T-shirts made and and for for me to walk around a large LMS conference with a free Marie T-shirt on.
00:57:38
Speaker
oh I like that, but I think there are probably a dozen people who get your joke there. Yeah, well, that's that's true of most of my jokes, to be true. Okay, that's a feature, not a bug.
00:57:49
Speaker
ah Neil, what are you looking for or thinking about in terms of Moodle? Yeah, I mean, I think... I think those big ah bigger changes that you alluded to, because I think when you get someone that's come in new to a company like that, that's had the same guy running it for a long time, I think, you know, irrespective of what the right strategy might be for them generally, I think it's quite hard for someone to come into a company like that. and suddenly tear it all up you know you don't want to be to morgan probably knows what i'm talking about or what i'm about to talk about but you probably don't but you don't want to be kind of brian clough going into leeds united you know you basically want to you know you kind of want to get people on side that's one for you to google later phil um okay that there is a film there is a film but um and it's spelled c-l-o-u-g-h yeah yeah um and so appreciate the hell so i think i think um
00:58:46
Speaker
you know It's probably fairly reasonable to say that in the kind of initial stages of the kind of leadership transition that you're probably not going to see anything radical. But I think it's now, okay, you know having had time with a new leadership structure, but whether we're actually seeing next step on what that would look like,
00:59:06
Speaker
step next the next the next step and what that would look look why um I think i think you you know the what you were saying, Phil, around higher education is interesting because I just think looking at Moodle from the outside, um i think sometimes it can be difficult to ascertain what's your message to higher education um a little bit, if I can put it in those terms. And so...
00:59:30
Speaker
Yeah, it'd be good to hear something that's a bit more directly addressing what they're doing in higher education, what their strategy is, how they um how they're positioning and what they think that sector needs and wants and how that relates to their product and how they're
Moodle's Higher Education Focus
00:59:47
Speaker
going to go about it. so Yeah, I think it's kind of, you know, what is what's really this next kind of era of Moodle going to look like now that the dust has settled on that kind of change um and and something more specific to come out of it in relation to higher education and universities.
01:00:08
Speaker
And I'll add to it, I'm sensing sort of, can't, just conversations here and there connecting dots. This is not something I have a formal analysis. I think there's pressure from the French family investment firm saying that I think they might be asking the same questions. Okay, we want more than this.
01:00:28
Speaker
We don't want to, I think the pandering has, and they need to pander more to what higher education needs. and less pandering to the open source developers who are doing niche products here and there who might be employed by colleges and universities. I think that's where they, um I'm hoping they change is to focus. So when I hear you say focus more on the needs of higher education, it's okay, it's great that we have these developers and keep them happy, but start paying attention to the bigger problems you need to solve.
01:01:00
Speaker
Do they have ah an advisory board that is not the the Moodle community of developers?
01:01:07
Speaker
That's a great question. And not that I'm aware of. I am not aware of that. So, um hey, that's a that's a question I'm going to ask Scott um at the Leeds conference. um So let's hope he's not listening to
Open edX's Relevance to Higher Education
01:01:21
Speaker
this. Or maybe he is, and then he'll have an an answer. I'm going to be going in disguise.
01:01:25
Speaker
yeah Yeah, okay. To Leeds. Oh, good point. Good point. OK, well, ah let's pick up ah just other vendors other than the big four. I mentioned I'm going to open edX. The thing I'm looking for besides smoking cigarettes and eating baguettes and some excellent food while I'm there is the question of how well it's that same question as what Moodle is becoming.
01:01:51
Speaker
you You keep announcing like McDonald's billions and billions served and like ridiculously large numbers of learners that they claim. But the question is, how relevant is it for higher education institutions and the problems they're trying to address?
01:02:09
Speaker
I've mostly viewed it as that's not their game. They don't care um as much. But the whole Western governors and competency-based education, and I wrote about this, it seems like they're actually paying more to what do institutions want to do. So WGU is migrating to Open edX as their primary education. LMS.
01:02:33
Speaker
How many other schools are thinking of doing the same thing? Or is that a one-off and this remains, you know, a hodgepodge, racking up numbers that make, you know, people happy with the numbers of learners served, but not directly addressing higher education pain points per se.
01:02:56
Speaker
getting a lot of signals, they do care. and But that's that's the biggest thing I'm looking for with Open edX. um I'm not sure who else I would add to that list right now where I have big questions of what's happening from a vendor
Opportunities for EdTech Innovation
01:03:13
Speaker
standpoint. Unless we go to Germany and and meet with some of the the legacy open source ah solutions in Germany. But any others that you guys would add or Open edX questions?
01:03:25
Speaker
it It is interesting to me that we're not talking about Microsoft here. and And maybe there's an element of bitterness here from all the times I got lectured by people about. You're ignoring Microsoft's major move into the LMS space and you'll regret that. And literally with fingers pointed at me is sometimes. So it is weird that we're not talking about that.
01:03:47
Speaker
Duly noted, but nothing to add.
01:03:51
Speaker
was that Yeah, that was a Microsoft I told you so. and Yeah, i i think I think there is potential for interest around the adoption of something different based on ah different delivery model or ah different type of course. And we talked about the kind of non-credit bearing and continuing education side of things.
01:04:16
Speaker
I think um it just depends the extent to which there's a real sort of prioritisation on those moves and a a kind of need. So i don't know, I tend to think of other products in relation to if an institution moves to a competency-based model or if an institution moves to develop short courses. And I think...
01:04:41
Speaker
The competency side of things, I think we're seeing little, tiny little things and I think there'll be something interesting at Leeds that'll be kind of announced on that front or kind of trail on that front. But I think the opportunity is if there's real friction with existing products around moves into new markets and new forms of delivery and so But it's whether those companies are switched on enough to kind of to focus on that side of things. So I don't know. That probably doesn't directly address the kind of Open edX question, but I think that's probably the opportunity space for anything Well, I think it does because it's getting into ah specialty department or program specific usage and not...
01:05:31
Speaker
institution-wide usage, and maybe that's where the innovation is. And that actually brings up ah the real vendor that we should be surprised we haven't even mentioned is Sakai. um and It's an open source solution, but, you know, that used to be such the rage. Also, didn't you just give a keynote there or something?
01:05:50
Speaker
at their That was the Appirio, the base foundation. We didn't really talk about Sakai that much. But so not hearing much of them, they're a little bit like Spinal Tap. Okay, we lost Duke. Don't worry. They're, you know.
01:06:06
Speaker
Not much of a university there. Our audience is becoming more selective in just parts of Spain. um But they're decreased relevance. But they've made some moves ah to say, well, what if we become more of a specialty program-specific, pedagogy-specific system that fits with your institution, LMS?
01:06:31
Speaker
um I don't know how much they're wholesale adopting that, but I i did at least want to bring up Sakai in that question. I do think it's relevant. Yeah, I would like us to have a whole session, if you guys think it's not too boring, for us to debate whether having disciplinary specific LMS makes sense.
01:06:51
Speaker
I do not. But I'd love to have a debate with you guys, especially if you disagree. No, I think it's an interesting area because there's lots of precedent of a different VLE for online degree programs.
01:07:04
Speaker
will that be Will there be examples of that for the non-credit bearing? And then what's the yeah what's the what's the best pathway through that, i think is an interesting discussion to have. ah Our listeners will be clamoring for that. But actually, i do think it's ah I do think it's a good question. It has been a question in the past. And um and you get it at institutions. It's like, oh, we need to use this because it's – at Illinois, it was we need to use long kappa because it was designed for chemistry.
01:07:32
Speaker
Yeah. All right, then we'll put that in the queue um of our highly detailed ah planning for the episode. But it is that just going to be a VLA features thing or is it actually going to come to fruition?
01:07:46
Speaker
We'll see. Well, I think it raises bigger questions about governance and choices and how you manage id tech. So we can, you I'm trying to sell this thing. Yeah. OK, good.
01:08:00
Speaker
Hey, well, this is our um what's most important. This is our longest episode. So that's got to be worth something. But um this has been very useful. i actually think I'm thinking about I want to break this up into pieces and sharing it. Some of these individual discussions specifically on anthology on the different vendors.
01:08:18
Speaker
Be nice to have those out in the public before we go to those conferences. But um this has been great. i Appreciate this different approach that we're trying to do and look forward to seeing you, all three of us, in person in less than two weeks.
01:08:33
Speaker
um so thanks